


build calluses, break promises

by catefrankie



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e01 The Return, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catefrankie/pseuds/catefrankie
Summary: She tastes like death and eternity, like she always has – except, of course, for the one time when she tasted like redemption.How many times can he learn he was wrong about everything? How many times can the world turn upside down before everything comes unrooted and crashes down on him?
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore, Katherine Pierce/Damon Salvatore
Kudos: 13





	build calluses, break promises

Katherine’s lipstick is still smeared in the corner of his mouth. His fingertips feel cold, wrenched away from her skin; it is too easy to breathe without her hand wrapped around his throat. He is the sum of all of her parts, subtracted away from him; he’s nothing, because he was only ever her, and now she’s gone. It happened so fast he barely believes that she was ever there at all; all she left behind was empty spaces and his bleeding heart – and her lipstick, in the corner of his mouth. He can taste it. She tastes like death and eternity, like she always has – except, of course, for the one time when she tasted like redemption.

How many times can he learn he was wrong about everything? How many times can the world turn upside down before everything comes unrooted and crashes down on him?

The first revelation was Katherine – her existence, her very self. The simple fact that there could be something beyond family, beyond Stefan and the duty to protect him – something that would make a man leave his home and strike out on his own, give up everything and everyone he had to be with someone new. The discovery that she was a vampire, that he could live forever with her – the tragic twist of fate that made him spend one and a half centuries waiting to rescue her – none of it held a candle to the first epiphany which removed himself from the center of his own life and placed her there instead. Whether she was an orphaned human girl or a monstrous vampire, whether she was arm in arm with him, or waiting for him underground a thousand miles away, she was always true north. He was faithful to her no matter who she was, no matter where she was, no matter how long he had to wait.

But what does it mean to be faithful to someone who was never faithful to you? To be faithful to a person who, maybe, never really existed? He knew, of course he knew, that there were others – Stefan, most prominently. But she told him the truth, she gained his trust and his love without compelling it, he was sure that meant some part of her heart was his alone – but maybe it only meant he was a sucker, a pitiful mark who would lay his heart bare to be ripped open without having to be tricked and cajoled into it. He’d long given up on believing in the fairness of the world; there was nothing surprising in the bare lack of a happy ending – but how was he supposed to look at _himself_ , anymore? If he wasn’t the chosen one, if he wasn’t the heroic prince destined to rescue the princess from her long captivity, pining for her just as she pined for him, then did it make him nothing but a joke? The constancy of his heart, the strength of his convictions, the willingness to do anything to achieve his ends – what did it make him, if it wasn’t attached to something real, if it couldn’t be offered up and then received by someone?

For days or perhaps weeks, he was unmoored. No plan, no fate, no soulmate. No identity except the one derived by his differentiation from Stefan: it’s not a flattering comparison, but Stefan was all he had, “brother” the only remotely positive name he had left.

And then – a sudden beam of sunlight which didn’t burn. Gravity restored, with a different center. A new meaning attached to his name, because it was called by someone who saw him.

_Elena._

In his worst moments of maudlin humanity, he asks himself when he first loved her. He doesn’t know. It could have been as early as the first moment he set eyes on her; as simple as the moment she told him she was sorry, because he lost Katherine too; as ill-timed as the moment she called his name in the tomb and convinced him to come back to the world by saying “please”. 

But he knows, at least, when he first _knew_ that he loved her. A staircase, a dance, a night spent on the cold basement floor. Just once, the universe opened up a space near her, and he was able to step into it. Where once there was only room for Stefan, there was a breathless minute in which anyone could play the hero, and in which Elena didn’t resent him for taking his brother’s place. She smiled on him with gratitude, and he was permitted to hold her loosely in his arms. Stefan retreated to the shadows, and he got his moment in the sun.

The world was the same as it had always been, but he had a new place in it. He wouldn’t always play the leading role – and he knew that, of course he did. But he could step in. His difference from Stefan was an asset, suddenly; he could offer her things that his righteous brother couldn’t. So she had Stefan’s devotion and love, and she didn’t need that from him, but his ruthless control, his selfish preference? These earned him a place at her side, these could be put at her service. And every now and then she would turn her gaze on him, and he felt like he had a place. He wasn’t Stefan – but he was _him_ and he had his own role, one he didn’t have to compete for. Stefan had her love – but they had their understanding. Did it entirely fill the hole Katherine left behind? No. But most of the time he found that being loved second-best by someone who loves truly was better than being loved best by someone who could toss you aside without a second thought.

That is, until he realized that Elena wasn’t holding him in his place – but rather, trying to lift him out of it. _You decided I was worth saving._ She saw him more clearly than anyone, and still she looked at him without pity or disgust and pulled him out of the depths to stand beside her. She saved his life. She didn’t flinch away when he leaned down to kiss her cheek, and she held his gaze when he looked a question at her. She held still in her perfection and allowed him in all his unsteady brokenness to kiss her lips. And then she kissed him back. 

Of all his revelations, his epiphanies, his about-turns – it was the most drastic and world-shaking. Next to every other spark of light, it was brightest dawn. He had chosen things to love before. But now, _he_ was loved, _he_ was chosen. The world looked as if it had been made brand new.

But it wasn’t a new world. Wasn’t a new beginning, or a happy ending. Wasn’t a benediction – wasn’t forgiveness or salvation or love. 

It was Katherine, with a different flavor of lipstick.

He already hates himself for running back to her, but is it any wonder, really? If she was the source of that moment, then she had to be the answer, didn’t she? Perhaps she was choosing him now, choosing him again to make up for betraying him all those years ago. It’s all or nothing with her, just as with him – kiss me or kill me – but maybe now it would be all. But no, that wasn’t true either. And another worldview comes crashing down: _I never loved you…it was always Stefan._

Never. _Never._

The truth of it is awfully, cruelly apparent. It was much more difficult to continue to believe in Katherine’s love than it is to hear it denied with finality. Because the way she was with him wasn’t love – and he _knows_ that now, doesn’t he? Katherine never loved him. Love doesn’t leave; love doesn’t lie; love doesn’t turn its beloved into a monster, no matter how immortal.

No, Katherine never loved him.

But Elena does.

It wasn’t her who kissed him. She said she wouldn’t have kissed him back. 

But she did save his life. She does trust him. She doesn’t look away when he meets her eyes. She sees his true self even when he tries to hide, she offers comfort when he’s hurting, she would never intentionally cause him pain. What she has for him – what they have for each other, what’s between them – what else could it be? What else was their understanding, except the certain knowledge that they loved each other, even though it couldn’t be spoken?

Maybe she’s not ready to face it yet – but she won’t leave him alone like this. She doesn’t have it in her. 

The thought of Stefan gives him pause only for a second. Stefan can have both of them – he _does_ have both of them – but he can’t have _all_ of both of them. Katherine was all Stefan’s, all along, apparently. So it’s only fair that part of Elena belong to Damon. This is the way it’s always been.

He just needs to hear her say it. He needs reality to reassert itself around her love – he needs the revelation that made his whole life seem to make sense to be true. If they need to keep a few secrets so that they can express this one truth to each other, so be it.

He buttons his shirt. If Elena’s going to see him, he has to appear whole. He licks the last vestige of blood-red lipstick from his mouth.

It’s a new world. Time to tell some new lies.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Halsey's song "Forever ... (is a long time)".


End file.
